Special Service and Features
150 villages will be chosen for Indo-Israel Village of Excellence, says Dr. Abhilaksh Likhi, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare
Technological advancements should be widely disseminated to benefit small and marginal farmers, says Dr. Abhilaksh Likhi
The stakeholders should ensure that the technological demonstrations being practiced in the 29 Centre of Excellence  for Vegetables should be widely disseminated in the villages surrounding the CoEs specially to benefit small and marginal farmers, says Dr. Abhilaksh Likhi, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare. He made this statement while visiting the Indo- Israel Centre of Excellence for Vegetables at Reddiarchatram village, Dindigul District, Tamil Nadu. He also interacted with the stakeholders of CoEs.
While interacting with farmers, Dr. Likhi informed that it has been decided to identify 150 villages around already operational CoEs for transferring them into Indo-Israel Village of Excellence based on the principles of Israel technologies and methodologies disseminated from these CoEs. To begin with 75 villages have been taken up in first year to commemorate the 75th year of India’s Independence. 13 CoEs have been selected for adoption of 75 villages under IIVOE programme. The Indo-Israel Villages of Excellence program will focus on:  modern agriculture infrastructure and technologies,  capacity building,  market linkage.
Dr. Likhi informed that under the Indo-Israel Agriculture Work Plan, action plans have been prepared from time to time for implementation of activities mutually agreed upon between the two countries. Technologies are provided by Israel through its experts and funds for creation of infrastructure for demonstration of technologies are made available from MIDH  of DA&FW. Based on the Israeli technologies, Centres of Excellence  are being established in various States. These CoEs serve as demonstration and training centres for latest technologies in the field of horticulture. These CoEs also serve as source of planting material for fruits and vegetable seedlings for protected cultivation.
A total of 37 Centres of Excellence  have been approved so far. Out of these, 29 Centres of Excellence across 12 States are fully operational. Eight CoEs are at various stages of completion. 29 CoEs are operational in the States of Haryana, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Mizoram and Andhra Pradesh. They focus on horticulture crops such as mangoes, pomegranate, sub-tropical fruits, date palm, citrus fruits , Lichi, flowers and activities such as bee-keeping.
These Centres have a combined capacity of producing more than 25 million quality vegetable seedlings and more than 387 thousand quality fruit plants. More than 3.6 lakh farmers have been provided training in these Centres and more than 250 field officers of participating States have been trained in Israel.
Dr. Likhi added that Agri Start-Ups and FPOs working in the region were invited to the CoE Dindigal to make presentations on innovations and technologies being used by them to cut down transaction costs and create better market linkages for farmers growing fruits and vegetables. Dr. Likhi also reviewed the activities of CoE, Dindigul for which the Director of the CoE made a detailed presentation. During these interactions Ministry Officials, Officials of the Indian Institute of Horticulture Research, Directors of 29 CoEs, 23 National Research Centres for Horticulture of ICAR State Horticulture Directors and other stakeholders were connected through Video Conferencing.
CoE Dindigul has trained department officials, farmers, school and college students of Tamil Nadu and other States on the latest technologies adopted in vegetable production under both protected cultivation and open conditions. This Centre also provides skill development trainings to the needy people to encourage the self-employment and creation of technology awareness which attracts many youngster towards agriculture. CoE aims supply disease free healthy vegetable seedlings of hybrids in pro trays to farmers to increase the production and productivity and impart training to the extension functionaries and farmers regarding the cultivation of vegetables under protected structures. The project serves as the demonstration units for the vegetables cultivation under protected structures like poly green house and insect proof net houses and also open field cultivation by following technologies adopted in Israel.
Technologies adopted by the CoE Dindigul from Israel include drip irrigation system for water use efficiency, fertigation, foggers for controlling temperature and humidity in polyhouses, protected cultivation of vegetables such as Cucumber, Capsicum and Tomato, open field cultivation of vegetables such as Tomato, Chilli, Ladies Finger, Brinjal, Cucurbits, mulching technology to control soil erosion, soil temperature and weed growth and conserve soil moisture, weed mat to control weeds in polyhouses, shade net houses and open field cultivation, tensiometer to measure the actual water requirement to the plants, cold storage room to store the vegetables to increase the keeping quality for long time, yellow sticky trap to control the pests to avoid usage of chemical pesticides and also enhance organic farming. Farmers can avail quality protray vegetable seedlings at their nearest proximity.
Last month, a delegation led by Union Agriculture & Farmers Minister had visited Israel. During this visit, interactions were held with Israeli entities such as Green 2000, NETAFIM Ltd etc, working in the areas of green house agriculture and micro irrigation. Meetings were also held with Israeli Agri Start-Ups such as NAANDANJAIN, YIELDS APP, GROFIT, VIRIDIX, RASHI etc. The delegation had also visited the Department of Agriculture Research Organisation, Volcani and participated in discussions on precision agriculture, remote sensing, drone technologies etc. The delegation also visited farms in the remote Ramat Negev Desert area besides meeting representatives of MASHAV – Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation.